


Kindle Fire with Snow

by Rainfallen



Series: Kindle Fire with Snow [1]
Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin
Genre: ADWD spoilers, F/M, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-03-13
Updated: 2012-03-13
Packaged: 2017-11-01 22:12:10
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 7
Words: 11,428
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/361837
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rainfallen/pseuds/Rainfallen
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Part 1 in a series of 3.  Probable general spoilers for A Dance with Dragons. </p><p>Arya Stark rejects the nameless, anonymous lifestyle of the Faceless Men and returns to Westeros four years into the long winter.  Cut off from the North by driving snows and treacherous winter seas, she must wait out the worst of the season in the Riverlands in the company of the Brotherhood without Banners.  Bandits and broken men and the hardships of winter are not the only enemies, for Arya has plenty of her own demons she must battle.  As a child, she lost almost everything, even her own identity; as a young woman, she is still haunted by those losses.  Even so, she has a preternatural pack of wolves, a distant brother, and her past companion Gendry to help her on her way to finding herself again.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Arya I

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the 2011-12 ASOIAF Big Bang on Livejournal.  
> Many thanks to the organizer Eena for her tenacity, dedication, and patience.  
> Additional thanks to my partner for his input and for keeping his patience with me while I obsessed and plotted and wrote and deleted and rewrote and cried over this over the past few months.

_Thou wouldst as soon go kindle fire with snow_ _  
As seek to quench the fire of love with words._

        --Two Gentlemen of Verona, II.VII.

 

As it happened, she was wearing her own face that night. The thought came to her unbidden as she ascended the steps into the cavernous body of the temple. For a moment the air seemed too thick to breathe. She was no one, and no one had no face of her own. Her thoughts spun and dipped and finally locked back into place. She took a deep breath and then turned. A young, sightless acolyte was taking slow, measured steps toward her with his burning luminere. She put a hand on his shoulder, soft as silk, and drew the long, slender implement from his grasp. "I will tend the candles, boy," she told him. "You go along to the kitchen and help Umma. Go on now."

So it was that the kindly old man found her tending the candles in the temple. She felt his eyes on her before she saw him: felt the air stir gently on her skin, tasted a hint of parchment and cloves on her tongue. He paused after appearing at the head of the stairs, and watched her for a moment, waiting for her to turn to him.

"Who are you?" the old man asked finally, a smile on the edge of his voice.

"Arya of House Stark," she said at once as she held the flame to the last wick. She cupped her hand around the little blaze to protect it from the air currents, and then looked up at him.

They stared at each other for a long time, silent and still.

"So you are," the old man said at last, and held out his hand for the luminere. "So be it."

That night, the waif brought her a cup for the first time in more months than she could recall. The clear liquid sparkled and winked cheerily at her as Arya turned it round and round in her hands. The little woman stood at her elbow, waiting, watching, her eyes telling nothing of her thoughts. _I could kill you_ , Arya thought irritably. _I could kill all of you and walk out of here, free._

She lifted the cup to her lips and tossed back the liquid in one swallow.

\------

When she awoke, the hard wood under her back was driving splinters into her skin and the world was swaying. The scent of dampness and pitch and salt assaulted her nose. There were faint voices coming from above and just enough light to illuminate the tiny cabin. She blinked at the dark wood grain of the walls for a moment and then sat up. A sword lay on the floor at her feet and she bent to pick it up at once, without hesitating.

Another wave struck the edge of the ship as her fingers closed around the hilt, and then another. _Winter storms_ , she thought, and she clung one-armed to the railing of the bunk to keep from being tossed about the room. She was in the belly of a ship – why? She was – doing what? Going where? She shook her head, but it was still so cloudy, as though she was still dreaming.

She looked down at the sword in her fist. "Arya," she said aloud, with certainty. "I'm Arya Stark."

_And I am going home._


	2. Gendry I

He was well past the docks and almost at the edge of the small town when the unmistakable sound of steel clashing against steel startled him out of his thoughts.  He stopped abruptly and tugged lightly at the reins of the laden pack horses to either side of him, pulling them to a standstill.  The eastern sky was lightening to the pale pearly color of a shell, and the docks were slowly beginning to stir with movement in anticipation of the dawn.  And somewhere off to his left in one of the ramshackle shipping shanties, someone was having a brawl.  With swords.  "The middle of a war and winter and people find even more excuses to kill each other," Gendry muttered.  Without giving it too much thought, he wound the reins around a post and set off to have a look.  No good if Jack or Pate or one of the other brothers had come to town for some fun and gotten himself into a bad spot somehow. 

The crusted remnants of dirty snow skirted the bases of the buildings. The quick bright sound of swords clashing led him down a muddy track that turned away from the seaside and ran up a little row of faded grey storage houses. He hurried as the sounds grew louder, now punctuated by rough curses and grunts and thumps. A crash and a thud sounded in immediate succession, and the walls of one of the rickety structures shook. Grimacing, he drew his sword and jerked at the door latch. A man with a dark red gash under his chin and a beard clotted with blood slid limply to the ground at his feet as the door which had been propping him up swung open. Gendry stepped over the dead man and let his sword point lead him into the building. 

A lamp lay broken on the hardened dirt floor, its oil darkening the ground in a spattered arc.  A single thick candle cast the room in long flickering lines of light and shadow.  At a glance, Gendry saw bare, skeletal rafters hung with rope and cloth and herbs, piles of furs, and stacks of wooden crates and barrels lining the walls. A ragged man with deep lines on his face and a few scraps of grey hair on his head stood panting a few yards away, clutching a bloodied arm to his chest and jerking himself around frantically.  "Where'd you go, bitch?" the man growled.  "Wait 'til I get my hands back on you, I swear by the seven hells I'll –"

"Oh, there she is!" a second voice crowed.  A scrawny younger man scrambled up from behind a crate and pointed to a far corner with the pocked sword in his fist.

Gendry couldn't see anyone in the corner, and although his mind stumbled a moment over the word 'she,' the situation before him demanded all of his attention.  He was a knight.  Whether someone had attacked these men or they had attacked someone else, it was his duty to see justice done.  "What in the name of god is going on here?" he called out, punctuating his words with a twitch of his sword.

Both men whipped around to face him, startled.  "None of your damned business," the older man grunted with some effort.  "A – what'd'ya call it?  Private disagreement.  You get on out o' here, boy!" He turned back to the younger man. "Willam, you get --" 

But Willam was on his knees with his eyes rolled back in his head, a thick, wheezing sound bubbling up from his chest.  The sword that had sprouted from his throat jerked back, and he crumpled to the floor.  The older man cried out once, in what might have been fear or indignation and then began to sob.  The sword and its bearer burst forth from the shadows, all dark cloak and glimmering steel, and before Gendry could really think his actions through, he was moving. 

He threw up his sword arm out of sheer instinct, and his sword caught the other blade in midair.  With a twist of the wrist the other swordsman deflected his downward cut, threw him off balance, and then barged right past him.  Gendry stumbled and spun to see the him rushing towards the older man, who lay mewling and groaning on the floor.  "Stop!  What are you—" Gendry began, but it was too late.  The sword took the older man in the chest and ran him through, pinning him to the ground.  He fell silent for the first time, his mouth hanging open and his hands grasping at the blade in his chest helplessly.  "We didn't mean..." he whispered hoarsely, before jerking one and then going limp. 

The dark figure turned and glanced in his direction for the briefest moment, and Gendry noticed that this was not a "he" at all, but a young woman, tall and wiry.  The words the dead man had spoken pounded loud in his head. 

The girl jerked her blade from the man's chest and wiped the blood on the dead man’s cloak.  She turned to face him, blade still in hand, and Gendry noticed that there was blood flowing freely from a wound in her thigh, visible through a ragged slice in her thick wool trousers.  A dark grey cloak longer hung from her shoulders, too long and too fine for a whore or a sea urchin or a farmer.  Her dark hair was bound in a tight braid behind her head, dark leather girded her torso and dark wool trousers her legs, and her hands were mottled with dark, wet blood.  Her face stood out in stark contrast to the rest of her, drawn and so very pale.  She was shaking visibly.  Why hadn't he noticed before? 

He carefully kept his gaze on her in case she decided he posed the same threat as the other unfortunate three.  "What - what happened here?  Who are these men?" he asked uncertainly.  When she didn't respond, he frowned.  "You've been wounded.  They hurt you?"  He cast a wary glance at her bare sword, but she hadn't moved to strike at him, so he slowly and deliberately sheathed his own blade.  Holding his hands up in a nonconfrontational gesture, he took a step towards her.  "Could you tell me what's happened here, m'lady?"

The sword slid from her hand slowly, and she looked at him with the oddest expression.  "Quick as a snake," she said, with a strangled little laugh that sounded almost like a sob.  And then: "You stupid, stupid...  _stupid._ "    Her eyes rolled back and her knees buckled and she collapsed to the floor in a puddle of dark cloth and blood.  His stomach gave a familiar jerk, and _no, no, no_.  "Seven bloody buggering hells," he cursed with feeling.

Suddenly afraid that someone else had, like him, heard the fight, Gendry turned and leaned from the doorway to look up and down the muddy lane. Seeing no sign of movement, he hurried back to the woman on the floor. With unsteady hands, he ripped two long strips of cloth from the dead man's cloak, bundled one up, and pressed it hard against the wound in an attempt to staunch the bleeding. The stab went deep and there was far too much blood for his liking. Working as quickly as his cold clumsy fingers would allow, he tied the other strip tight around her upper thigh. Gendry scowled at his work and muttered a curse. He tugged at the strip of cloth again to tighten it, and then scooped the woman up in his arms and stood carefully. He shouldered his way through the doorway and out into the breaking light of day, and cast glances this way and that to see if anyone was coming to investigate. But the pathways were still blessedly empty, and the few men milling around the docks in the distance made no indication that they had heard anything out of the ordinary. 

It was not until he had secured the loads on the pack animals, settled the woman carefully in front of the saddle on his palfrey, and had trekked off a good hour from the Saltpans that he let himself think about what he was doing. 

"This is the worst idea I've ever had," he said aloud to the trees.  But what choice had there been?  None at all, that's what. 

The weight of her head shifted against his chest and she made a pained sound.  Gendry tried not to panic.  Jeyne was at the inn, and Jeyne was the best in the whole Brotherhood at tending wounds.  Jeyne would set her right.  And after that – well.  It could be weeks before they had word from the Lady.  Anything could happen.  But it was no good.  This was not a secret he could keep from her.  This is how it would be: he would take Arya Stark to the inn to have her wounds tended, and wait for any news on the Lady's whereabouts. 

Even as he tugged at the reins and urged the animals faster, Gendry couldn't help thinking that taking a dead-until-two-hours-ago girl to her truly-and-actually-dead-but-not-quite mother still seemed like a bad idea all around. But it wasn't his decision to make. 


	3. Arya II

The pack was on the move. 

Something had set her mood on edge and raised her hackles.  The pack sensed it, sensed her agitation, and stayed well to her rear.  But it was different, a heightened awareness, a doubling of the vision that sharpened her sight rather than diminishing it.  The air was different, the smells were all strange, and there was an itch about her shoulders that scratching could not touch.  And now, as she loped through the forest with her pack following in her wake, the softly crunching snow chilled the pads of her feet and muffled the sound of her passing.  There was a rightness to it that was both alien and achingly familiar, conjuring absolute acknowledgements of _yes_ , and _good_ , and _home_.  And above it all was the pull, the drive, the pressing need to run, run, _run_ , because home was so far, but home was so near, and she could taste the faintest hint of it in the air and that was enough. 

 _Nymeria_.  The word was foreign, jarring her ears as she ran, but it pulled her in like an anchor.  _Nymeria_.  Dim shapes of men moved at the edge of her vision and phantom fingers brushed across her face softly, but she ignored them and ran. 

\------

Arya dreamed she was flying. 

But, no.  That wasn't quite right.  Someone _else_ was flying, and she was riding on his back, cradled in deep black feathers that were smooth beneath her fingers. 

The skies were open and deep and old – the grey-blue summer skies of the North.  Riding on a bird's back wasn't gentle and flowing as she might have expected –it was more than a little bouncy and jarring, point of fact – and the wind whipped at her hair and clothes like it was trying to pull her away.  Arya had half a mind to let it.  Her arms stretched out to greet the northern sky like an old friend, and the bird bearing her aloft tilted in flight to accommodate her shifting weight.

"You have to open your eyes," he told her, with a smirk in his voice as if what he was saying was terribly funny. 

"They are open," she retorted, and rolled them to prove the point.  "Besides, you don't get to tell me what to do.  You're younger than me.  And dead. And a bird."

He laughed. "I thought getting older might have made you nicer.  But it's good to see you're still you."

"I'm nice when it suits me.  When did you turn into a bird?"

"Oh, I've always been this way.  What about you?  When did you turn into a wolf?"

Bran tucked in his wings and dove down, down, down towards the dim earth, which showed only a hazy grey green where the crowns of the sentinels brushed the clouds. 

"I'm not a wolf," she said, reaching out a hand to touch those branches as they shot past.  "Things might be better if I were."

"You are," he insisted as he dodged a branch.  "You just have to open your eyes to see it."

Bran flittered to a branch above her head and settled there.  She peered up at him curiously.  "I still don't understand," she admitted.

"Lies are easy to hide when the truth is hiding too," he said. 

"I hate riddles," she growled at him. 

The bird that was her brother gave her a chiding look worthy of Maester Luwin.  " _Feel_ it – don’t try to think it through so much.  At night, when you aren’t thinking, you _know_ you aren’t alone, don't you?  You know it right now.  We're still here, Arya.  Just like you."

Before she could reply, he hopped on the branch and a smattering of water drops cascaded down from bark and leaf and smattered across her face. 

"Hey!" She screwed up her eyes and mouth and batted at the water.  "Stop it."

He hopped again, and more of the warm drops slid down her face.

"There now, miss, it's all right," the bird said, in a voice that was not her brother's. 

At those words, Arya drew in a startled breath and opened her eyes, dazed and disoriented.  Everything about her body ached, and the world was strangely nebulous around her, dim and cloudy in a way her dream had not been. She blinked rapidly to clear her vision and was met with the sight of a damp cloth hovering above her face and a young woman standing over her.  Arya scrabbled about frantically for a blade that was not there, and the woman jerked backward in alarm at the sudden flurry of movement.  Instinctually, Arya threw herself forward and dug her fingers into the flesh of the other woman's neck, holding her thumb just _there_ , poised to press. 

The woman let out a strangled cry of alarm and pain and tried to jerk away, but Arya's hands held her close.  "Who are you?  What do you want with me?"Arya demanded.  She stared hard at the woman's face, searching for any familiar features or indications of motive, but found nothing.  She saw only that the woman was younger than she thought at first, perhaps only a handful of years older than herself.  The woman wrapped surprisingly strong fingers around Arya's wrists and tugged at them; feeling a twinge of uncertainty, Arya loosened her grip. 

At once, the woman twisted them away from her body, hands wrapped protectively around her neck. She coughed hard and rubbed at the reddened skin. "For mercy's sake,” she choked out, “Calm yourself! I mean you no harm, girl!" 

Arya tried to push herself backwards on the bed for a better vantage point, but when she tried to move her lower body a hot stab of pain shot through her leg, so intense it blurred her vision and stole the breath from her chest. Her head felt suddenly heavier and larger than it should. Somewhere at the edge of her vision she could see that the woman had crossed her arms and was watching her with disapproval. Arya bit down on her lip to keep herself from crying out, and tried shoving herself back again. She succeeding in pushing herself back a few inches, and then drooped back against the headboard in defeat. "What have you done to me?" she asked the woman accusingly, and tried to glare at her through crossed eyes. 

"Look at you.  You can barely even sit up and you're still trying to fight," said another voice from somewhere off to her left. 

Gendry was standing in the doorway, arms crossed, frowning.  _Oh_ , she remembered suddenly.  _Him_.

"I think she's trying to kill me," she told him, annoyed.  "A lot of use you are, just standing there."

"Oh, rubbish.  You should be resting," the woman said, sounding wounded, "Not trying to pull my head off with your hands!

"I'll tend to her, Jeyne," Gendry said, ignoring Arya's words for the moment.

"As you like," the woman said, but she did not sound convinced. 

Gendry stepped away from the door frame to let her slip past and out of the room.  It was hurting Arya's neck to keep looking over at the doorway, so she gave up and let her gaze drift back up to the low beams of the ceiling above her.  _I hope he hits his head on one_ , she thought uncharitably as he walked across the room.  His steps were heavy on the floor and Arya could feel every one of them vibrating in her own head.  There was a dull sound of wood scraping on wood as he pulled Jeyne's stool closer to the bed, and a soft whoosh of air as he sat. 

"Lie down proper, would you?" he asked.  "It isn't good for your head to be propped up like that."

"I'm fine," she said shortly.

"I can move you myself if you're difficult, you know," he told her. 

Arya expelled a breath, annoyed, but clenched her teeth and wriggled back down the bed just the same.  In a few seconds, her head was back on the pillow and eyes were watering at the throbbing pain that seemed to cling to every bit of her body.  It was a few minutes before she could breathe without gasping and focus her vision. 

Gendry had leaned over, elbows on his knees and hands loosely folded between them, and was just looking at her. 

"You were at the Saltpans," she said, not knowing where else to begin.

"I was," he affirmed.  "Supply run for the inn.  We've a lot of mouths to feed here, and the Brotherhood gets us goods from all over to help us along."  The edge of his mouth turned up in an almost-smile.  " _You_ were at the Saltpans," he repeated back to her, and she knew it was a question. 

"I was.  But I've been somewhere else.  I've been some _one_ else."  She frowned, trying hard to think, but thinking hurt.  "I can't – my head's all fuzzy."  Why was she telling him these things?  She didn't know who he was anymore or who he was working for.  She thought it might be the fever.

Gendry reached down to the floor and produced the water-filled pan that the woman – _Jeyne_ , she told herself– had been using before.  He pulled out a sodden cloth, wrung it out, and then set the pan back on the floor with a metallic thud.  "You took a blow just behind the temple," he told her, as he gingerly dabbed at her face with the cool cloth.  "That's why your head's hurting."

Her hand shot up to the right side of her head, and her fingers immediately found a large knot that crackled with dried blood when she touched it.  She didn't need to ask about the throbbing pain in her leg.  She remembered that well enough: slipping through the sleeping little town after the boat landed in the dark hours before daybreak, three men stumbling out of the shadows wielding lecherous words and rusty blades, deftly luring them into the confined space.  Then, the one time she let them all surround her, one had landed a hit, clearly convinced by then that if he was going to have her he'd have to kill her first. 

"Don't fiddle with it," Gendry scolded, as she pressed and prodded at the knot on her head.  "It wasn't so bad that it needed wrapping up, but you won't do anything but make it hurt more unless you leave it alone."  He leaned down to dip the rag in water again, and then gave it a good squeeze.  "I brought you back here two days ago, and Jeyne's been tending your wounds.  She's good at patching people up after a battle – wrapping cuts and setting bone and the like."

"I don't remember," she said truthfully.  Time was a blur of colors and sensations, of wolf and woods and names she didn't want to remember.  "I just remember dreaming."

"You had a fever," he agreed.  "Jeyne used some root. She says it helps the pain and makes you sleep.  But it didn't keep the fever dreams away.  You even talked some."

"What did I –" He cut her off with a swipe of the cloth over her nose and down across her chin.  She batted at his hand weakly.  "Stop that."

"Names, mostly," he answered, before she could finish her question.  "Bran.  Jon.  Mother.”  A pause.  “Mine a few times. And... Nymeria?"  The last was a question that she didn't have the heart to answer, but her thoughts flit back almost immediately.   

Bran. 

_Bran!_

"I must have talked more than 'some' to say all that," she said, distracted.  Remembering.  

He smiled a little.  "You woke me more than once with all your mumbling.  I thought you were having some kind of fit more than once."

"What did you do, stay with me all the time?"

"Of course I stayed with you," Gendry said, a little too harshly.  He tossed the rag into the pan and stood abruptly, walking the few steps to the window.  _Seven hells_. She was too tired and too addled to be sure what he was offended about now. 

It was a long time before he spoke. "We thought you _died_ ," he finally said to the blackened pane.  "After that night you got taken.  We were sure the Hound took you to the Twins for ransom, and that you were—"

The Twins.  _Mud and drink and blood and drums, drums, drums_.  They pounded hard and unforgiving in her head before she could block them out. 

_Calm as still water._

"He did," she said after a minute.  "We got there just... after.  Or during, I don’t know.  And we turned right around and left."  She looked away from his back and up at the ceiling.

 _Fear cuts deeper than swords_.

After a minute, he shifted and half turned so that she could see his face.  "Arya," he said, his voice crackling a little. 

He had that stupid look on his face that meant he had something to say and didn't much relish saying it.  She didn't have the patience to look at him for much longer, and her leg was hurting.  "Spit it out," she said crossly as he fiddled with the heavy window covering. 

"There's someone you have to see," he blurted out, too fast, as though he had been holding the words in by sheer force.

A startled hope and sudden memory pushed the words out before she had time to think. “Have you found my brother? Bran?  Because I – it’s _stupid_ , but I _dreamed_ , and I think he might be–” She trailed off when she saw the look on his face and just waited. 

Gendry looked utterly confused.  "Your – what?  No, no.  It's something else."  

She let out a breath in a hiss of disappointment and annoyance.  Of course they hadn't found Bran.  Bran wasn't here; he was in the North, where he belonged. Suddenly she knew it for a certainty.  Bran was in the North.  

"Gendry," she said, "You did me a kindness, pulling me out of the shack and bringing me here and tending to my leg and all.  But I don't see why I need to see Lord Berric or Thoros or whoever again.  There isn't exactly any of my family left to ransom me to, and if you're telling me they mean to hand me over to someone else, you can all go right to hell."

Gendry got that look again and Arya spread her hands impatiently.  "Listen to me," he said urgently, stepping away from the window. "It isn't Thoros or the Lord.  It's – I know you're not going to believe me, but you have to know."  He looked down and scrubbed a hand over his face. 

"Just spit it out," she said.  She moved to sit up without thinking, and then shuddered back down onto her pillow with teeth clenched to avoid crying out.  She was _useless_ with that stupid wound. 

"Try to trust me," he pleaded to his boots. 

She snorted.  "Would you just—" 

"It's your mother," he said. 

All at once, all the breath in her body seemed to have fled.  Arya stared at Gendry mutely as he stood beside the bed, all shuffling feet and bobbing Adam's apple and avoiding her eyes.  Finally she forced the words out thickly: "My mother is dead."

He looked up at her then.  "Yes," he said.  "She is. And no, she isn't." 

Arya shook her head hard.  "I don’t – no, I _saw_ —"

"You knew Lord Berric," he interrupted.  "You know what he – was.  What he could do.  He found her.  Someone had pulled her–her body from the Trident, and–"

"No," Arya told him, her mind and mouth unable to formulate any other response.  "No."

"Yes," he said softly.  "The Lord gave her the gift himself, breathed the fire right out of his body into hers.  Not everyone knows who she is.  But ever since, she's been our –"

"Gendry," she said, "Shut _up_." 

He shut his mouth.

Her mind was a void, a cacophony of silence, only the thundering of her heart in her ears and the shuffling of Gendry's boots to cut through the din. 

_Fear cuts deeper than swords._

_Fear cuts deeper...._


	4. Gendry II

It was two weeks before they had any news.

In the meantime, despite the unexpected new resident on the upper floor, life at the Inn went on as it ever did.  The menagerie of children that wound up at the Inn had not gotten smaller over the past years, and neither had Gendry's responsibilities.  There were close to forty of them at any given time, from little ones barely able to walk all the way up to half grown.  Most of the older orphans were sent out with different bands of the Brotherhood when they were big enough to manage sword and shield at once without falling over.  The Lady didn't seem to care who followed her; she took boys and girls alike so long as they were capable.

That was his job, and Jeyne's: to make them capable and keep them safe in the meantime.  When the smithy didn't demand Gendry's time (which was rare enough, because every time a group of the Brotherhood passed through, they brought with them a load of damaged weaponry and armor in need of his attention), he did his best to instruct the little ones, teaching them how to hold a sword or a hammer and how best to swing it.  Jeyne helped him sometimes, being proficient enough with a blade, but the general management of the Inn and the food supplies and the herd of children kept her busy as well.

Jeyne's little sister Willow had been with them for the first years, but she'd left a few months earlier. In private, Jeyne had confessed to Gendry that she missed her sister terribly, that she felt Willow was too young and she should be here at the inn where she belonged, not wandering the Riverlands with the Lady.  Gendry knew Jeyne was afraid that Willow would come back different– harder, callused, jaded, or perhaps not at all– but when Willow had asked the Lady to take her, with assurances that she could cook and shoot a crossbow and tie up a wound as well as anyone, there had been something in her expression, some stubborn edge of determination, that said she would be just fine. 

Gendry knew that look all too well.  Willow looked nothing like Arya, not truly, but the look she had was enough to give the Lady pause, just as it had him the first time he saw the girl.  He couldn’t begin imagine what her reaction would be when Arya actually stood before her. 

The sun had broken over the tree line, and he could see Jeyne sending off four of the biggest boys to check the traps and restock the woodpile.  Red Jon rounded the corner of the yard, coming down to help him in the smithy.  His very own apprentice. Gendry didn't know how many were in the Brotherhood –no one did, if the talk was true– but he knew their numbers reached well into the hundreds, not including the brood at the inn.  He was the only smith among them, and incapable to keeping them all in arms and armor.  There was no shortage of weapons and armor to be found on the dead, to be sure, but little enough of it was fit for wear.  It had been Thoros's suggestion that he take one or two of the boys as apprentices.  Gendry retorted he was naught but an apprentice himself, but Thoros had smiled a tired smile and put his hand on Gendry's shoulder. 

"No," he had said, "You're no more an apprentice than you are a boy.  Not anymore.  War changes us all."

Red Jon was a strong lad of thirteen, and thus named by Willow to distinguish him from the two other Jons living at the Inn at the time.  He would never be so tall nor broad as Gendry, but he swung a hammer well enough, and had a good eye for the forming and shaping of metal.  There had been another, Wat, a scrawny, towheaded boy who had left with one of the groups of outriders several months back.  He'd taken an arrow in the chest in an unexpected skirmish at the White Rock Fork, and if Gendry had had no use for arrows and archers before, he was inordinately opposed to them now.  Any weapon that could punch through good steel and good men from a hundred paces away was not a weapon any honorable warrior would use. 

Gendry leaned on the long, low table that lined the wall of the smithy, his hand twitching every now and then as he watched the boy.  Red Jon hovered over the punch and mold with a sheet of hammered steel and a torn hauberk, working painstakingly to form neat replacement links.  They both heard the horses at the same time.  Red Jon straightened and peered out the open door, but Gendry held up a hand.  "I'll have a look," he told the boy, grabbing his cloak and whipping it over his shoulders.  "Keep the scrap metal in the pan and mind you don't drop it in the coals this time."

"Yesser," Jon grumbled.

When Gendry rounded the front of the inn, the riders were almost upon them. He recognized Harwin at once, and immediately breathed easier. So few in the Brotherhood were the men he had fought alongside in the beginning. Wolves, lions, leeches, and the hard realities of winter had taken many, but where one man fell, it seemed two arrived to take his place. The war had made widowers and paupers of many, and the work of vengeance brought with it a sense of purpose and relief that men could find in few other places. Gendry understood. He knew bitterness, and knew the thirst for vengeance as well. 

The men who rode with Harwin were strangers to him, but Gendry nodded in respectful greeting.  "Harwin," he called out.  And then, "Will! Penny!  Horses!"  The children burst out of the stable doors to see to the animals as Harwin and the others dismounted.  Introductions were made and the men stepped inside to have a drink after their long ride.  "Is she coming?" Gendry asked once they had tankards in hand. 

"Not here," Harwin told him, not needing to ask of whom he spoke. "She'll be in the hills north of Red Fork in ten day's time. There's an inn – you remember the place? Kevyn and I, we're to stay here. Reynold and Jerome will head back with you and Jeyne and any of this lot that are ready along with you. You know how she is – likes to set eyes on everyone from time to time."

Gendry shifted uncomfortably in his seat, and Harwin frowned.  "You've not been doing anything she'd take unkindly?" 

Gendry let out a sharp bark of laughter.  "I'd hope not.  Seeing as I have her daughter upstairs, healing from a wound she took at Saltpans from some brigands who tried to have a go at her."

Harwin froze.  "Her daughter?”

“Her daughter,” Gendry repeated, his tone flat.

“It can't be.  Lady Sansa hasn't been seen in—"

"Not Sansa."

Harwin's face twisted in disappointment, and he shook his head.  "There's some mistake.  Arya died at the Twins."

"No, she didn't."

"Every report we have says they went there.  Someone spotted a man they swear was Clegane outside the very gates.  She died there with – well. She died there."  Harwin's tone was final, and very, very tired. 

"I think I know her when I see her," Gendry snapped.  "Besides, no one else I’ve ever met has such a mouth on her."

Doubt still clouded Harwin's eyes, and Gendry jerked his chin toward the stairs.  "Go see for yourself.  She's on the upper floor at the end of the hall."

When Harwin descended the stairs an hour later, Gendry was back at the forge with Red Jon.  Harwin stepped into the warmth of the smithy and watched them for a moment, arms crossed over his chest.  His face looked like Gendry felt, caught somewhere between disbelief, worry, and joy.  Gendry remembered that Harwin had been almost as distraught as he the night Arya was taken and in the weeks that followed, as their hope quickly faded and died.

"Are you going to tell the Lady?" Harwin asked him eventually. 

Gendry sat down the tray he was working from and drug an arm across his face to wipe away the sweat.  "No," he said.  "I'm going to take her with me when I go."

"You certain that's a good idea?"

"Never been less certain in my life.  But what can I do?"

Harwin shook his head.  "Nothing.  She has to know."  He was silent for a beat, before asking, "Have you told Arya? About _her_?"

"Aye," Gendry replied.  "I don't know if she understands.  How could she?" 

"Didn't you say she was supposed to be resting?" Harwin asked after an uneasy lull in the conversation, the soft chinks and snaps of Jon's metalworking the only sounds.

"Aye," Gendry affirmed.  "Did you see her leg?  She took a nasty wound to it, just about a fortnight back.  Deep, and with a rusty blade if I had to guess, but Jeyne's kept it from festering.  She'd lost so much blood by the time I got to her, I was afraid –" He stopped and frowned at Harwin.  "What do you mean, 'supposed to be resting'?"

Harwin gave him a look.  "When I went up, she was hanging out the window, trying to get a look at who had arrived.  She turned when I came in and fell flat on her face. And then fussed at me when I carried her back to her bed. Stubborn as ever – and you’re right about the mouth on her.  She pick up that language from you?"

There was a hint of a smile playing about Harwin's lips as he spoke, but Gendry was just exasperated.  "God damn it," he said with feeling.  He turned and he cuffed Jon on the shoulder.  "The smithy is yours.  I want you to do repair work _only_ , you hear?  No trying to forge a broadsword without me here.  And if you have to melt anything down, don't throw in anything with rust like last time."

"That was three times ago!" Jon protested.

"Just the same.  And don't burn down the smithy.  If you do, best make sure you're inside, or I'll have your hide."

Jon glared at him, and Gendry mussed his hair brusquely. Then, unable to put it off any longer, he headed back to the inn to tell Arya the news.  


	5. Gendry III

The ride to the Red Fork took them eight days.  It had been weeks since the last snowfall, and the air was sharp and cold but not so bitter as it might have been. 

Four of the youngsters had come along; two were so scrawny they could sit the same horse without tiring it.  But they were all of them grown enough, and either they'd grow to fit their swords or they wouldn't.  It was out of his hands now. 

On the fourth day, Jeyne rode beside him, solemn and still in her saddle. Her big grey eyes followed Arya as she rode well ahead of them with one of Harwin's men close on her heels. He didn't notice that Jeyne had unwrapped the long scarf from around her face until she spoke. "You're worried about her," she said in a low voice, breaking the long silence. 

He trained his eyes on his palfrey's ears. "I'm worried about a lot of things. Don't tell me you don't worry about Willow every day." 

Jeyne smiled at him.  "I'm no fool, Ser, and surely not a blind one.  Don't talk to me like I am."

Experience had proven that when Jeyne pulled out the "ser" he had lost the argument.  

But she didn't press him this time.  "I do worry about Willow," she said instead.  "Every time I draw breath, I worry.  It's no use.  But I do it anyway.  There’s times it feels like the one thing I can do."

Arya's bundled form swayed a little in her saddle, and his breath caught in his throat.  "I know what you mean," he muttered, and they fell back into silence.

That night, they heard the wolves. 

Gendry sat with his back to the fire, and let the soft noises of the sleepers filter through his ears and tried to focus on the sounds of the forest instead.  It was difficult.  Reynold snored, and Arya still talked in her sleep.  When the first howl broke though the muffled quiet of the trees, Gendry jerked himself straight and tightened his gloved fingers around his sword hilt.  It was close, so close.  Arya's murmured words had stopped and her breathing quickened, unnaturally loud in the quiet camp, but she tossed on her bedroll as though still asleep.  Then another howl sounded, and then another, and another, and another to his left, to his right, before him and behind.  _Gods be good_ , he thought irrationally, wildly, _they're all around us_.

There was the sound of shifting cloth as Jerome started awake and sat up.  The howling continued in a mournful cascade of sound.  No sooner than one began to trail off did another lift its voice to replace it.  Another glance behind him showed that young Addam had awoken as well, and sat with wide eyes, hands pressed over his ears in horror.  The sound of Jerome baring his steel roused Reynold, and soon the seven of the eight were awake, staring blindly into the thick trees where the howls rang out again and again without abating.

Gendry's eyes lingered on Arya, who still thrashed about on her bedroll and whimpered.  A shiver ran through him.  She was still asleep, he was certain.  A howl rose above the pack, deep, guttural, _expectant_ , and Arya seemed to contract in upon herself, a tight ball of wool and fur and fitfully sleeping girl.  Why did it make him so afraid? 

No one else slept that night.  When the howls grew more distant and the eastern horizon turned a pale pearly hue, Jeyne roused Arya and they set out again.  The group of them, unsettled by the eerie night, spoke but in whispers.  Arya kept her silence and would not meet his eyes. 

That night the wolves came again. Gendry stoked the fire higher and higher, and sat with his sword in his lap until the sun came up. Even when the noise receded, he still heard the howls echoing in his heavy head. 

On the sixth day, the wolves howled even in the daylight and hounded their heels so close that Gendry expected to see the entire monstrous pack every time he looked over his shoulder.  The horses were driven wild and wanted nothing so much as to flee at full gallop.  As the day passed into night, Gendry began to think they would never reach the Red Fork and was quite convinced that he might never sleep again.   When full darkness fell, he built the fire still higher and they all huddled around it as the calls of the wolves surrounded them once more, so very close.

But that night, Arya did not sleep. She sat beside him and stared into the trees, her face empty of any expression. She was shivering. He said her name without thinking, and the light of the fire caught in her eyes when she turned to look at him. He shifted to put his back to the others and leaned toward her. "Do you know what's happening?" he asked in her ear, his voice low and harder than he meant it to be. 

She looked at him for a beat and tugged her bottom lip between her teeth.  "We should hurry tomorrow," she whispered finally, not even attempting to answer.  She dropped her bundled head onto his shoulder, and pressed her face against his cloak to shield it from the wind.  Gendry could not say if either of them slept that night. 

On the eighth day, they finally crossed the river and the snow began to fall.  Arya rode beside him that day, but kept her mouth shut and her eyes trained on the thickening forest around them.  The trails they followed were narrow, and Gendry could not always make them out, but he trusted Jerome’s guidance. 

It seemed the pack had been slowed by the river, for their calls were fainter than they had been since they first began.  But still Arya stared into the trees, searching. 

“What are you looking for?” he asked Arya at last, after she turned too far in the saddle and bit back a growl of pain from straining her leg. 

She shook her head.  “Dead men,” she whispered. 

A wolf howled.

“Death doesn’t mean what it used to,” he said, taking care to keep his voice low. 

She exhaled, her breath showing thick and pale in the cold, damp air.  “My brother is alive.  Bran.  He came to me in a dream and told me I wasn’t alone.”

He didn’t say anything, and after a time she eyed him sidelong.  “Do you think I’m making it up in my head?”

Gendry thought about it for a long time.  “Thoros can see the future in flames and breathe life back into a man.  I’ve seen things I can’t ever explain, things I wish I could forget.  I don’t know your brother.  I surely can’t tell you he isn’t able to talk to you in your dreams.”

By evening, the trails had widened to a road, and soon the road was joined by other trails and widened still more.  When the looming inn rose before them, Gendry was profoundly relieved.  The wolves could howl all they wanted with strong walls keeping them at bay.

It was midmorning the next day before the Lady and her entourage rode in, right on the heels of a group from another outpost of the Brotherhood.  They set to digging a fire pit five hundred paces into the trees almost as soon as they arrived, and Gendry heard that the gathering would take place at mid day, as soon as the company had settled. 

As the morning slipped past, Arya sat in the common room of the inn with her head down and her hood up.  The shadows under her eyes told of another sleepless night, and no wonder.  She had not once mentioned what he had told her of her mother, and he had honored her request for silence on the matter, but he imagined that she could think of little else.  It was surely the case with him. 

One of the women who kept the inn had given Arya a carved stick to help her walk steadily, but when he stood beside her and told her they should head to the fire, she left it lying on the trestle table and leaned on his arm instead.  He felt absurdly grateful to be of use at last. 

Their walk into the woods toward the fire was a slow one.  The ground sloped down, which was a boon, but the fresh-fallen snow made the walk treacherous.  Gendry kept his eyes trained on the path before them while Arya scanned the trees and the few men scurrying past them.  When she stumbled to an abrupt stop with a sharp intake of breath, he followed her line of sight.  The fire pit was dug into the low point between three rises of ground, and some fifty or so men and a handful of women milled about it, great dull bundles of cloaks and overcoats.  On the opposite rise stood a lone figure in grey, staring down immutably at the scene below. 

"It's her," Arya whispered, and he should not have been surprised that she could tell at this distance. 

"Aye," he said, and pulled her gently back into motion. 

They were still fifty paces from the fire when the wolves descended.  They slipped over the rise like sand from a closed fist, scores of them, more than he could guess in a glance.  Those gathered around the fire noticed almost immediately, with the murmurs lifting to shouts and the scraping sounds of steel being bared cutting through the still air. 

"Torches!" a voice from near the fire shouted. 

"No," Arya said.  "Oh no."  She pulled at his arm and they moved faster despite her unsteady steps. 

The wolves slipped into a half moon formation around the fire pit, but stood back well beyond the reach of any weapons but bow and arrow.  "What are they doing?" he wondered aloud, half horrified and half in awe at the sight before him.  "I've never seen...."

They reached the fire, but Arya pulled him past it, pushing through the now silent throng with no regard for bared swords or the open flames of their torches. 

"Look at the beast!" Someone cried into the stillness, and "Kill it!  Arrows!" shouted another.  Arya jerked away from him, and, quicker than he would have believed, had pushed past the front line of the crowd and stumbled a dozen paces through the snow toward the pack.

"No!" he heard her shout, though whether she was speaking to the men or the beasts he could not say.  

When he could finally see, he froze in place, breath stolen away from his chest.

Arya stood with her feet planted wide apart in the snow to keep steady, staring down the largest wolf he had ever seen or imagined.  As broad as a horse and surely as heavy, beast stood almost as tall as Arya at the head, and its yellow eyes glowed with an eerie light.  The pack milled in an uneasy half circle around it, but continued to keep a healthy distance. 

"Arya," he pleaded, but she ignored him.

"You're blocking my shot," Anguy said angrily.

"Pull her back," another suggested, and a man rushed forward with arms outstretched towards her.  The wolf growled, a deep rumble that seemed to vibrate in Gendry's chest, and then lunged in the man's direction.

"STOP," Arya screamed, her body a blockade between the arrows and flame and the ring of beasts before them. 

"No, no, no, no," Gendry chanted.  He found himself moving forward, thoughts a muddled panic, but an arm jerked him back before he'd taken two steps.  Jerome shook his head once, hard, and jutted his chin back towards the woman and the wolf.  The arrow hadn't flown, and the wolf stood still, now closer to Arya than to the pack, and made no further move to threaten the quickly retreating brother who had reached for her.  The smaller ( _normal_ , he thought) animals slunk and paced back and forth, but did not press forward to attack.  Arya stood with one hand flung behind her back in a gesture that echoed her command to the men, and the other stretched out before her, entreating the wolf.  _What is she doing?_ he wondered wildly, but as soon as the thought passed through his mind he knew the answer.  He had known since the first night they heard the wolves.   

The massive wolf took a step towards her, its ears flickering forward and back like leaves in a gale, snout jutting up into the air as it sniffed.

A woman moaned in horror somewhere to his left, and he could hear Thoros muttering a fervent prayer behind him.  A glance up the opposite hill showed that the Lady had not moved, but still stood silent atop the hill with her terrible eyes locked on the girl.  He didn't have the time or presence of mind to dwell on what she might possibly think of this. 

The wolf took another step, and Arya took five.  She was shaking, her wounded leg trembling beneath her. Gendry thought he might choke on the very air, but he dare not move and risk breaking this awesome spell.

Arya shifted all her weight to her good leg and stretched out both her arms.  She was speaking very softly but he could not hear the words.  She leaned, leaned, and suddenly, she was falling, hands scrabbling at the empty air to regain her balance.  But in half a heartbeat, the air wasn't empty.  The wolf bounded forward and Arya's hands closed on long thick fur.  Her arms slipped around the wolf's grey neck and her body sagged against its chest. 

The dire wolf ( _for that it what it must be,_ he told himself) turned its head back towards its smaller cousins, milling restlessly at the edge of the trees, and snapped her jaws once.  A low rumble emanated from deep within her chest, and Gendry felt the flesh on his arms and neck prickle and shiver in response.  The pack seemed to understand.  In twos and threes they slipped back up the rise and melted away into the brush of the forest. 

Arya still clung to the dire wolf's neck.  Her whole body seemed to be shaking from the effort of standing. 

Gendry shook himself loose from Jerome's grip and stepped closer. 

"Arya... are you..." he began, but broke off when the wolf's yellow gaze snapped to him. He didn’t think the girl had heard him, despite the wolf's reaction. Arya Stark was crying. 


	6. Arya III

She had dropped her gloves somewhere on the ground behind them. She needed to feel, to touch, to _know_. Her hands were buried deep in the wolf's shaggy winter coat, and the thick warm coarseness of it between her fingers struck at her heart like home. She was only half aware when the pack began to scatter back into the forest. Voices cut vaguely across her awareness, but they grew fainter. The men must be dispersing just as the wolves had, but Arya scarcely noticed either.

"I thought I'd never find you," she whispered into Nymeria's neck. "I'm sorry. So sorry I sent you away." Her voice was thick and hoarse, and her face was wet from tears and her runny nose. She could feel the tension in Nymeria's stance, could feel the wolf's urge to lick her face, sniff her hands, tumble her into the snow and wrestle as they might have long ago, but there was restraint there, too. "You know I need you to be strong now," Arya breathed. "Thank you." Her chest hitched and she pressed her face into Nymeria's fur.

Soon, when the only sounds were the creaking of branches in the winter wind and the sound of the two of them breathing, Arya raised her face. 

And there she stood. 

The woman wore a tattered grey robe, far too thin to protect her from the driving winter winds, and a long grey cloak. The hood shrouded her face, but behind it her eyes were burning, bright and terrible. 

_Fear cuts deeper than swords_. 

Arya swallowed a sob and stood straighter, teeth grit hard against the sharp pangs in her leg. Nymeria stood solid beside her, and Arya was more grateful than she could say. The wolf neither threatened nor welcomed this shade of a woman in grey as she stepped closer. Arya scraped a thick sleeve across her face to wipe away the tears and lifted her face. 

Cold fingers slid over her cheeks, and cold hands cupped her face. Arya looked at the woman's ruined face without flinching, looked at the withered flesh, the deep, scarred furrows, the eyes shot through with red. She looked, and the Lady Stoneheart looked back. There was nothing of her mother here. 

_Calm as still water._

The Lady moved one hand to her throat, and pressed it there. "Trick," she rasped out, her voice broken and agonized.

"No," Arya whispered.

" _Trick_! Arya – is – dead."

"I am not the one who died," Arya said fiercely. She gripped Nymeria's fur tightly, so hard her fingers burned. "And no trick could fool Nymeria."

The Lady's other hand shook slightly against Arya's cheek. She slid her hand under Arya's chin and turned her face to the left, then the right, and stared with her terrible eyes.

No words could calm her heart in this moment. 

"Mother," Arya said, having meant to say nothing at all. "Mother." Her voice broke and her chin trembled and she couldn't do or say _anything_ right. "Please, hear me. Bran is alive."

The Lady jerked her hand back and choked out a sharp, keening sound. 

"Listen to me, mother." The tears were hot as they slid down her face, and her breathing was labored. "Bran is alive. I've talked to him. I don't know about Sansa, mother, but you aren't – you aren't alone. I'm here. I'm sorry I couldn't come to you sooner. I didn't know. I didn't know." Her chest heaved and ached with the force of her sobs, and the last words came out as a whisper. 

Nymeria shifted beside her, and Arya's hand slipped from its grasp. She slumped down into the snow with a soft thump, the impact sending a fresh jolt through her leg. Of their own volition, her numb fingers wrapped around the jagged edge of the Lady's robe. "You didn't say goodbye," she whispered. "When we left, I told you goodbye, but Bran was – I thought you would be glad to know he's..."

Her thoughts fled before her, and her words broke off. Almost a month's time she had known the truth, and in all those days she had wondered countless times what she would say to her mother, if any scrap of her mother remained. She had plotted this exchange day after day, framed it with her years spent alone and filled it with the certainty that her brother was alive, but nothing had come out as she planned and now nothing would come at all. Even the mundane escaped her now: no _I love you_ , or _I have missed you_ , or _Mother, I am so afraid_ would pass her lips, and so she only wept. 

Slowly, so slowly, the cold shadow that was once her mother knelt in the snow beside her. The tatters of her grey sleeves fluttered in the wind as she reached out one hand. "Child," she said. "Come. My child."

Arya leaned forward and wrapped her arms around her mother without thinking. The arms that embraced her were cold and too thin, the hair that brushed her face was stiff and brittle, and the scent was all wrong, but as Arya sat in the snow and spent her tears against the Lady's chest, it was almost enough. 

Soon, too soon, the Lady pulled back and pressed her dry lips to Arya's forehead. She held them there for a long lingering moment, the kiss a burning brand against Arya's cold skin. And without another word she rose and turned away. 

"Mother," Arya whispered. Through blurry eyes, she saw the men gathered around the massive fire, their gazes locked upon her and the slowly approaching figure of the Lady. They parted as she reached them, but she paused and pressed a hand to her throat. She seemed to speak to them for a long time, with Thoros of Myr hovering at her elbow and occasional murmurs rising from the crowd. When she finally moved again, her path became evident. 

"No," Arya said, her voice stronger now. "No!"

But the woman in grey did not look back. She stepped to the edge of the fire pit and spread her arms wide as though to embrace its heat. The glow shone, muted, through the threadbare fabric of her robe as she fell slowly forward. The fire took to her grey robe quickly, and soon her form was wrapped in greedy flames.

Strong arms lifted Arya from the snow, and for a terrible moment she could no longer see the flames. "No," she begged, and Gendry understood. He held her upright next to Nymeria, and they watched as her mother burned, red and blue and silent. 


	7. Gendry IV

The arguments had lasted all afternoon and into the evening, and Gendry was tired.  Tired of the stupid differences of opinion, tired of the objections, tired of the anger, tired from the sheer lack of sleep.  As the others' tempers rose, so did his, and he was on the verge of opening his mouth to say something he might regret when Thoros broke in. 

Many of the men had not known Thoros in the earlier days, had not seen Lord Berric rise from death again and again, but the red priest was still greatly respected, and his authority in this time was undeniable.  His voice was reason and a middle way, and once again, it prevailed. 

_So why doesn't this feel like a victory?_

Gendry left the fire and began the trek through the snow to the inn. Despite night having fallen, the wolves were nowhere to be seen and remained blessedly silent. He supposed he had Arya's beast to thank for that. 

When he pushed into her room, the last light had long faded from the sky.  Arya's candle had burned down low, and she lay in the center of the small bed, motionless but for the steady rise and fall of her chest. He hesitated for a minute and then moved to put out her candle.

"Gendry," she said softly, before he could blow out the flame.  Her eyes were red and swollen.  She looked exhausted. 

"You should sleep," he said.  She bit her lip and closed her eyes, her expression pained, and he instantly regretted saying it. 

Gendry sat on the edge of the bed and said her name gently. She looked over at him. "I'm so sorry," he said, and reached out a hand hesitantly and touched her hair. He pushed a few dark, damp strands out of her face very carefully. 

She didn't answer, but took his hand and tugged.  "Stay, please," she asked.  "Don't go."

He shook his head. "I'm not going anywhere," he promised. She gave him a look –lost, grief-stricken, unconvinced– that made his chest hurt. "Here," he said, bending to slide a hand under her back and lift part of her weight. "Move over a little." He kicked off his damp boots and climbed into the bed next to her, warring emotions making his movements awkward. As soon as he had settled on the edge of the bed, she pulled herself over to him, rested her head on his arm, and buried her face in his chest. 

Almost instinctually, he wrapped his arms around her and pulled her tight against him, resting his cheek atop her head.  Her shoulders began to shake, and within a few minutes she was sobbing quietly against his chest.  His throat was painfully tight and he swallowed hard, rubbing a hand slowly up and down her back.  It wasn't fair, he thought, but he didn't say it.  None of his words would be right in that moment. 

When her tears were spent, she lay quietly for a long time, her breathing slowly growing more even.  When he was quite certain she had fallen asleep, he breathed in deep and sighed, running a hand across the wisps of hair that had escaped from her long braid.  "What am I supposed to do?" he asked her, very softly.  "You were always the strong one."

"Still am," she muttered.  "I could beat you with my hands tied."   

Gendry coughed back a surprised laugh.  "That wasn't what I meant," he said. 

She pushed herself up on one elbow and looked at him.  "I know." 

"What can I do?" he asked again. 

"I have to go home," she whispered. 

Gendry closed his eyes for just a minute and sighed.  "I know," he said, looking up at her again.  "We'll get you there.  It may take some time, but we'll get you there."

Arya worried her bottom lip between her teeth, looking down at him intently.  "You'll come with me?" she asked after a moment, all seriousness.

He didn't have to think about it.  "Of course I'll come with you," he said resolutely. 

She swallowed and nodded, some of the tension seeming to slip out of her shoulders.  She lowered herself gingerly back onto his arm.

"It won't be just me, you know," he told her. 

"What do you mean?"

"The men will follow you.  There's no way North right now – but when you go, they'll follow you."

"Because – because she was my mother?"

"In part.  And because of who you are... and what you can do.  That wolf pack obeyed you, Arya.  That kind of power puts fear in a man, but respect, too.  They might not like it right now, but they won't turn their backs on you.  Because they're afraid, aye, more afraid than most'll admit, but more because they need someone to follow. And you have the power they need." 

She was silent for a minute.  Then, "What do you mean, 'there's no way North'?"

"Just what I said.  No living thing can move through the blizzards north of the neck, and the Shivering Sea will break any ship that braves it.  But Thoros says that within a year or two, the storms will settle and the kingsroad will be passable."

"I could –"

"No," Gendry interrupted, "You couldn't.  Your horse would die, you'd run out of food, and you might even freeze to death before either of those things happened."

"I've waited five years to go home."

"Aye.  You can wait one more."

"I'm tired of waiting," she said softly. 

They lapsed into silence, and Arya nudged her head back under his chin.

He swallowed hard, and started talking because he didn't know what else to do.  "A lot of things changed after you left," he told her.  "The armies fell back or went North and disappeared into the snow – haven’t seen a real force in the Riverlands in more than a year.  There are still groups of bandits, but we rout them out pretty quick.  Spend more time moving food and supplies to the people than fighting."

"You miss it?  The fighting?"

He thought about it.  "Sometimes.  I'm a fair hand with a sword.  But better with a hammer, both in a fight and in a forge.  So long as it's for the right cause, I'll take either.  The building or the fighting."

"Is that why you're going with me?  Because you know I'll end up where the fighting is?  And the rebuilding after?"

"No."  Her words had been light, teasing almost, but the certainty in his tone quieted them both and settled into the ensuing silence.

When the candle finally guttered out, Gendry stared over her head into the darkness and struggled to calm his pounding heart.  Dead women and dead men and dead brothers all alive.  Dragons in the world, darkness all around, and snow to blot out the fires. 

He tried not to think of the things he hadn't told her.  He didn't know what any of it meant, didn't want to think of the whispered stories of darkness and death and horror that filtered down from the North.  And he surely didn't want to _go_ there.  But Arya would not stay in the South for long, blizzards be damned, and in his heart he knew she had the right of it. 

When she went, the men would follow her, and so would he.  Into the wastes of the Cold One, into the depths of the icy hell, he would follow her. 

But for now, she was tucked against his chest, sleeping and safe.  Wounded, weary, and mourning, yes, but blessedly safe.  It would have to be enough.  


End file.
